The Best Laid Plans Of Mice and Men
by Vo0d0o-D0L
Summary: When The Batarian Hegemony plans to enslave the human race after failing to capture some, they realize the mistake they've made in stirring the hornet's nest. AU, storyline is humanity's eventual launch into the space age. Rated T for now.
1. Chapter 1

I watch the blossom fall away,

Like snowflakes in the wind.

This is the beauty of today

And the sorrow that it brings.

2030 AD, Listening post bravek, SOL System, Pvt Arkhan

"Sir, we are unprepared to uplift a species such as this. They are far too primitive - even the scientist Salarians would struggle to make this species space worthy."

"Very well. We will take a few of these... humans... and they will be brought to the hegemony within the week for closer analysis. This species could do well in the slave trade of Khar'shan. Do not fail us."

These were the final words spoken aboard the listening post before the alarm rang clear through the space station, all hands reporting to the armoury and then heading to the small 'invasion' fleet, which consisted of several undersized frigates and a single dreadnaught, which was the smallest ship with a brig large enough for slaving. Before long, the tiny fleet had departed and spread across several continents, deploying shuttles where they went so the alien force could gather humans without drawing attention to the vanishing of an entire settlement. In the end, spreading out benefitted them as they gathered a variety, as though they were kids collecting trading cards.

They came down from the skies under cover of darkness, and stole men and women and children alike. By the end of the night, the population of the world had fallen by over a thousand. There were many humans in the dreadnaught's cage - and Arkhan saw them all. Their skin was soft and supple, different from the coarse, hard Batarian skin, though it varied greatly in colour - from the deepest of blacks, to the purest of whites, though most of the primitives gathered were of a middle ground, a light golden colour, reddened by the colour of their blood. Then they all had some form of headdress, long and wavy, short and spiky, but strangest of all, the colour changed with each person. Each one looked oddly different, as though they were all a different race of their own.

By this time most, if not all, of the humans had woken to find themselves held captive, widespread panic storming the brig. But for every human panicking, there seemed to be three that were either staring down the guards at the edge of the cage or screaming at the top of their lungs, rattling the cage, obviously challenging the mighty Batarian guards to a fight as they spoke in their musical language that hit the ears like the snapping of a klixen's claws or a varren's jaws snapping the bones of his prey.

"Arkhan, we're approaching the relay. Get these pathetic creatures ready to be presented to the hegemony." A voice called on the comms, an officer from the bridge most likely - Arkhan didn't know their names as he'd never had permission to rise that high up the ship.

"Yes, Sir!" Arkhan said with enthusiasm. This task, although mind numbingly repetitive, would guarantee him a promotion. And so he set to work, taking the humans out one by one, armed guards training their weapons on each human who was scanned and tagged before being placed back in the cage. This process went on for the best part of ten minutes before the Batarian guards had to go into the crowd of human prisoners. Arkhan stared in astonishment as the humans overwhelmed the guards, rendering them unconscious as the sea of angry, defiant humans beat his comrades into oblivion. In less than two minutes the twenty Batarian guards had been either rendered unconscious or killed outright by the relentless pummelling that the humans had brought down to bear on their armoured bodies. In the next few seconds the humans tore the guards weapons from their corpses and begun to hand them out to members of the crowd.

Arkhan saw that in the centre of the mob was a single human wielding a revenant support weapon. This man obviously had military training if he was able to carry it with a degree of professionalism. In his strange language he saw that it was giving commands to the others around him. Realisation dawning upon him, Arkhan fumbled momentarily for his pistol, which he drew, aimed and shouted "NOBODY MOVE!"

2030, unknown location, SSgt Anderson.

Staff sergeant Anderson was making the return journey home from a local bar that he'd spent the evening at, celebrating the end of his tour of duty. Anderson had returned home last week from deployment in Somalia, where pirates were taking hostages regularly, disrupting trade routes and being enough of a nuisance for the Somali government to ask for outside help from NATO. The last thing that Anderson remembers from last night though was hearing a strange noise, as though there was a giant humming bird flying above his head. That was just before he'd spotted several burly looking men, who redefined the phrase _"butt ugly". _These men had proceeded to assault him, and despite his training, there were too many of them for him to counter, and he was knocked out cold.

Upon waking up, he immediately noticed that he wasn't alone, and though it was highly overcrowded, the air was slightly too fresh, despite the immediate smell of sweat and panic that permeated the air around him. It seemed like he was on an overcrowded airplane, with the air conditioning on throughout the aircraft.

His misconception about his location however was soon revealed as, when he stood up, his head slightly above the majority of the frightened population of the crowd, he saw many more of the disgusting looking men. They had a sickly yellow skin colour, as though they had missed a dialysis treatment session, which varied only slightly from a strong yellow ochre, to a slightly more natural, yellowy orange colour. But their skin was the least grotesque thing about them. Each one of these "men" had four eyes, complemented with eight nostrils that seemed to be constantly flared so you could right up their noses. Then they had bulbous lines of flesh that crossed their cheeks and faded onto their necks, which made their mouths appear to be inset slightly, as though they were completely separate from the rest of their faces. Anderson noted the sheer volume of teeth that they had, all of which pointed in different directions, as though the words "_dental hygiene_" meant nothing to these people. Finally, Anderson saw the strange, patterned, indentations that went from their brow to the back of their heads, making them seem as alien as possible. The only thing that he couldn't see about the aliens, was that although they were not much taller than he, if they were taller, but they were slightly stockier, which conveyed their physiological difference.

Anderson's scrutiny was interrupted suddenly when a deep, almost gurgling voice came through a loudspeaker "_Arkhan, nest volan gokolu nilan. Juthul kana barbanos murikolon distu daterios._" All of the humans looked in confusion at what the voice had said, but Anderson already knew that they were dealing with extraterrestrials. "_Gran, obika_!" One of the aliens in the room shouted back. That was when Anderson noticed him. He was slightly smaller than the rest, and it became apparent that he was one of the lowest on the ship when the bigger ones would grab someone and thrust them in front of him so he could use an orange, glowing wrist tool for a few seconds - what he did, Anderson knew not - before he forcibly placed a collar onto each person before they were returned to the cage. Before long, one of the guards had come in far enough, and went to grab Anderson. But he was too quick, deflecting the alien's hand and thrusting his own fist into its throat, causing it to choke and sputter, partly in shock but mostly in the pain of being hit so forcefully. In tandem, the people in captivity overthrew their alien overlords and Anderson grabbed the large weapon that his would be attacker had in its unconscious hands, before stripping it of the other weapons that it had and passing them to the nearest people around him. "Ok, step one on the return journey home is to get rid of the guards. The gate is open, and there's enough of us here to surprise the rest of the cre-

"_OORST VAS MILEK_!" He heard and the crowd turned angry mob spun to face the oppressor. It was a lone alien, the grunt, the lowlife of the ship that was aiming his pistol at Anderson, attempting to stop any form of revolt against his commanders. That was before someone opened fire on him and after several shots appeared to be ineffective, the rest tore through his body and ripping it to shreds. There was a moment's silence in the hold of the ship before over a thousand people starting cheering, unanimous cries of "freedom" echoed through the oversized room.

Before everyone could rush out of the cages and swarm the aliens above them, Anderson ran out to the door in front of everyone. "Who has military training?" He shouted over the cheering and rushing of the crowd. About a dozen hands shot into the air, in the part of the group that had heard him. "I want anyone with training to lead the way with me. These alien bastards picked the wrong damn race to screw with!" He roared as those who'd put their hands up appeared, alien weapons in hand, to cheers from the crowd as the exodus began.


	2. Chapter 2

2030, BSS Jaken, Captain Drakul

The dreadnaught that had been tasked with the transport of the one thousand, newly discovered humans was, somewhat poetically, also a part of the scouting fleet that had discovered the pre-space age species. Its Captain, Drakul, who was normally a sour man, was in a particularly bad mood because of several factors, including a lack of sleep, varren-shit orders from the hegemony to capture so few of the humans for analysis, and most importantly the level of incompetence that he was surrounded by.

His ship's navigator and pilot were nowhere to be found, and they were supposed to be plotting their course through the relay, then half of his bridge staff were too stupid to think of pinging their omni tools, while the other half were too busy arguing over petty things, like who had the last piece of gorlak cake - one of the nicest things that captain Drakul offered his crew for good service every few months. Drakul stood over his galaxy map, imperial. His presence within a few moments silenced everyone, before his deep roaring voice shattered the silence.

"Where the hell is Bolosk? I need him here NOW!" After a few seconds delay as the bridge looked at him in bewilderment they scurried like ants rushing to their positions, trying to contact their navigator.

Drakul saw his yeoman waiting patiently for his attention and immediately turned to face him.

"Sir, Bolosk was last seen on the elevator to the brig - it was his shift for guard duty... sir"

The captain thought for a second before he sent two men to go and relieve Bolosk from his duty so that he could come do his job as navigator. Almost petulantly, Drakul turned again to his galaxy map, at the helm of the ship.

2030, Alien spacecraft, Ssgt Anderson

There were 6 humans with alien weapons - not including Anderson himself - who were leading the horde of people through the maze of large, open corridors, aliens at every turn.

Fortunately, none of the aliens were expecting the captured humans to escape their hold, which gave them the element of surprise, so they were trying to remain as quiet as possible, by tackling and strangling the aliens, instead of shooting them, so that no alarm was raised and they weren't recaptured before they could find a way back to Earth. By the time they'd moved through the level they were on, they'd killed about a dozen of the aliens, some of which required teaming up in order to subdue them.

Anderson knew it would be impossible to hide every single human on the level as the crowd following their guardians squeezed through the hallways, people were shoulder to shoulder, some more panicky and pushy than others, but as a whole, relatively calm as the rear ranks (mostly) copied the example of the first who gave their protectors room to do their work by staying in the cleared rooms and corridors.

Sure enough though, not two minutes after the thought popped into his head the now recognisable hiss and semi silent swish of the alien ship's doors was heard in the gap between his group of military men and the rest of the crowd.

Two aliens stepped out as the seven men turned on instinct with their weapons raised. Engaged in idle conversation... or what Anderson thought was idle conversation, the aliens didn't immediately notice the group of humans, but after a moment one did. And then everything kicked off.

Before both targets could be taken out, one of them used its glowing orange wrist tool, and not a minute later, alarms were ringing ship wide.

Panic spread quickly, and it took a few minutes to calm just a portion of the crowd, and sensing the futility of their actions, Anderson and the other soldiers began to spur on the crowd, they began to direct their panic into anger. The crowd became a mob a thousand strong, ready to storm the ship and kill their captives.

Unfortunately, the elevator could only hold about ten people, all squeezed in shoulder to shoulder, so the rest were let loose on the ship, guided by most of the soldiers, traveling through maintenance walkways by the dozen, breaking anything they could - including their alien kidnappers.

The elevator stormed upwards through the ship to the next floor up, a few seconds of travel, before Anderson 3 other soldiers and 6 civvies stormed out the elevator and began charging down any Batarian that they could see. Despite the alarm only a few aliens had made it to the armoury and had more than just pistols, however those who had responded correctly effectively stopped the human escape dead in its tracks, for several unfortunate members of their group it was more literal than they would've liked. Anderson did a quick count of who he could see and there were only two civilians left, unless they were crowded together, they'd just lost four people in the blink of an eye.

A rather lengthy firefight ensued, and it was only when a different group of humans stumbled on to the battle that the tables turned in their favour. Overwhelming numbers brought the aliens to their knees, and they were quickly incapacitated.

Everything on the ship was going crazy now, people and aliens were everywhere engaged in their own battles, sometimes with weapons, sometimes without. What disconcerted Anderson most however, was the body count of people on the floor that he saw as they raced through the ship to find the captain and make him take them back.

Drakul had decided to reinforce the bridge with the remainder of his best men, as it was almost certain that without pilots, the human filth would try, and fail, to persuade him to take them back.

He had barely prepared five minutes ago when a stampede could be heard outside the metal doors, the bombardment of gunfire mingled with screams of both alien and Batarian voices disconcerted some of the men, but they were Batarian hunters, and would not fall to these pathetic humans.

"MEN! PREPARE TO FIRE!" Drakul commanded over the now roar of noises coursing through the barricaded door. They had purposefully sabotaged it so that only one, maybe two humans at a time would be able to make it through the door at a time.

In the end, the corpses of nearly one thousand humans lay dead and dying on board an alien vessel, the first of their kind to die off of the homeworld.

Anderson had managed to survive long enough to put down a couple of the aliens in the control room, but a couple was not enough. And so now, out of the thousand they started with, only three remained, and they were kept heavily under lock and key.


End file.
